Mr. Media Training

This morning, Anthony Weiner’s attempt at a comeback began with a high-profile cover story in The New York Times Magazine.

It’s a fascinating story worth a full read, but one line in the lengthy article is garnering the most attention: “At breakfast, Weiner quickly put all the speculation to rest: he is eyeing the [New York City] mayor’s race.”

Personally, I don’t believe that Mr. Weiner has any place in public life. Not only did he exercise ludicrous judgment by sending lewd texts to strangers—but his deeds came with a hefty price, turning a reliably Democratic district red (his district voted for a Republican to replace him; the district turned blue again earlier this year).

Regardless of my personal feelings about Mr. Weiner, my goal in this post is to analyze the effectiveness (or lack thereof) of his first detailed public confessional from a PR perspective.

Let’s start with the good. In some ways, Mr. Weiner appears to “get it” and displays remorse—particularly regarding how his behavior affected his wife, Huma Abedin (a top aide to Hillary Clinton). The reporter noted two times when Weiner cried during the interview; in once incident, she recounted:

“He paused and took a deep breath and started to cry. ‘She’s given. . . .’ He stopped again, could barely get the words out. ‘She’s given me another chance. And I am very grateful for that. And I’m trying to make sure I get it right.’

Weiner says he’s been in therapy since resigning his post, and he seems to be making a real effort at both understanding and modifying his behavior.

He also benefits from his wife’s forgiveness. Unlike other spurned political wives who have famously stood by their men at press conferences during their moments of humiliation, Ms. Abedin didn’t. But she willingly participated in this interview, titled “Anthony Weiner and Huma Abedin’s Post-Scandal Playbook.” If they didn’t look like a solid team two years ago, they sure do now.

But in many other ways, Weiner strikes me as a man who is still very much in the process of trying to figure things out—and who still has a long way to go.

I’ve been right in making those types of judgments about Weiner before. On June 2, 2011—in the early days of the Weiner scandal—I wrote on this blog, “I can’t shake the feeling that his actions are consistent with those of a man who doesn’t want his wife to learn what he’s been up to.” In this interview, Weiner confirmed my analysis, saying, “I lied to her. The lies to everyone else were primarily because I wanted to keep it from her.”

The photo that made Anthony Weiner infamous

Weiner blames his reckless behavior on his need to be liked, saying:

“’There just wasn’t much of me who was smart enough, sensitive enough, in touch with my own things, understanding enough about the disrespect and how dishonorable it was to be doing that. It didn’t seem to occupy a real space in my feelings…‘I wasn’t really thinking. What does this mean that I’m doing this? Is this risky behavior? Is this smart behavior? To me, it was just another way to feed this notion that I want to be liked and admired.’”

That quote, in addition to others, leaves me with the inescapable conclusion that he’s still trying to figure it all out. On a human level, that’s appropriate, and I respect that he’s doing some hard work in therapy. But on a political level, that’s just not good enough. Until he can more accurately diagnose and account for his own motivations, he’s not ready to be entrusted with the second act the public so often grants to politicians.

Plus, there’s this “pass the buck” gem, about Twitter:

“If it wasn’t 2011 and it didn’t exist, it’s not like I would have gone out cruising bars or something like that. It was just something that technology made possible and it became possible for me to do stupid things. I mean, the thing I did, and the damage that I did, not only hadn’t it been done before, but it wasn’t possible to do it before.”

So without Twitter, his reckless behavior wouldn’t have emerged in other ways? Unlikely.

Then again, a potential run for NYC mayor may not be about trying to win the race. As one pundit said:

“Is this about winning?” asks the political adviser. “Or is this an attempt to get the scandal off the books? Then the next time he runs for something, he can say: ‘You know what? We talked about that last time. Aren’t we beyond that?’

And that might be the most brilliant PR strategy of all.

What do you think? Can Anthony Weiner’s political career be resurrected? Please leave your thoughts in the comments section below.

By now, you may have already seen the hidden video of Rutgers head men’s basketball coach Mike Rice physically assaulting his players. The video quickly went viral after airing on ESPN yesterday.

After watching this video, there’s no doubt in my mind that Rice should be fired. Immediately. (Editor’s note: Rice was fired shortly after this story posted.) He probably should have been fired when Rutgers officials first learned of the video last November. But Rice may be somewhat irrelevant at this point, assuming he will be fired in the next few days.

What’s much more relevant is the failure of the officials at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, who knew they had a problem on their hands and failed to take appropriate action. (They suspended Rice for three games, fined him $50,000, and ordered him to take anger management classes. That’s more than nothing, but not commensurate with the seriousness of his infractions.)

Below, you’ll find ten questions I’d pose to the president and athletic director of Rutgers right now. If I was their media trainer, I’d insist that they develop credible answers to all 10 of these questions before doing any interviews.

1. 1. What did you know, and when did you know it?
2. 2. In December, you decided to suspend Mr. Rice for three games. Why didn’t you feel that his firing was warranted at that time?
3. 3. If calling players “fucking faggots,” physically assaulting them, and throwing basketballs at their heads isn’t a fireable offense, what is?
4. 4. A player could have been seriously injured or killed as a result of having a basketball thrown at his head. Again, why didn’t you view that as a fireable offense?
5. 5. You’re now reconsidering your decision to retain Mr. Rice. If you feel you took the appropriate action by suspending him, why are you suddenly changing your mind? It looks like you’re just bowing to pressure because ESPN released a story you had hoped remained hidden.
6. 6. After Penn State’s scandal, it became clear that athletic departments could no longer treat out-of-control coaches too leniently. Weren’t you nervous that your decision to keep Rice employed could bring all of you down?
7. 7. How would you have treated, say, a humanities professor or a provost who hurled a basketball at a student’s head at high speed? 
9. 
10. 8. What would you say to the parents of these athletes who trusted Rutgers coaches to treat their children with respect?
11. 9. Your University Code of Student Conduct says: “All members of the Rutgers University community are expected to behave in an ethical and moral fashion, respecting the human dignity of all members of the community and resisting behavior that may cause danger or harm to others through violence, theft, or bigotry.” How would you respond to those who say you appear to have two sets of rules: one for high-profile university leaders, and the other for students and more lowly staff?
12. 10. Why should students, faculty, and the community trust you to retain your positions?

What questions would you ask? Please leave your thoughts in the comments section below.

UPDATE: April 3, 2013, 10:10 a.m.: Rutgers University just announced that it terminated Rice’s contract. The questions posed above remain just as relevant now as they were before his firing, since it took the University months — and public pressure — to take that action.

UPDATE 2: April 3, 2013: 11:23 a.m.: Rutgers’ Athletic Director, Tim Pernetti, issued a reasonable statement this morning, in which he took responsibility for the delayed firing. His statement, and my response, can be found on PR Daily here.

Photo credit: Getty Images

Editor’s note: Brad Phillips is taking two weeks off to celebrate the arrival of his new son. This guest post is by Chris Syme, the principal of CKSyme.org.

In 2011, Altimeter released a report on the social media readiness of businesses. One thing was clear from the report: the number of online crisis events were on the rise.

The trend is still true today: negative online events are alarmingly common. Everything from a regional ice cream company in Montana to Oreo to Ragu to Bic Pens to Applebee’s, and so many more you need a roster to keep up. But, there could be many more.

Recently, I got a phone call from a large university that wanted to use my services as a crisis monitor. I was surprised because they had not crossed my radar, and I keep a pretty close watch on the higher education sector. Turns out their issue had not surfaced yet. They were going to make an announcement within the week they knew would cause a social media firestorm, and they wanted to get ahead of the issue. (Side note: I don’t get enough of these calls. Most wait until after the event breaks.) They saw a crisis coming and decided to be proactive.

Crisis pro Chris Syme

Many organizations aren’t set up for real-time crisis monitoring and this client knew they were not. We set up an aggressive monitoring plan with regular sentiment reports, trend analysis, influencer identification, messaging templates, social media triage and other components. Three days later I got a call—the news had leaked to the press and we needed to start right away. Fully confident that they were set up to mitigate the situation with systems we had set in place, we hit the ground running.

This particular client knew there were tangible benefits of staying in front of a crisis they could not handle internally. As a result of outsourcing the monitoring services, they were calmly able to devote their time and energy to managing the triage and logistics of the event. They realized four critical benefits of being proactive when you see a crisis coming:

1. 1. Discovering early warning signs of negative or false information that can trigger a viral spike, if left unattended.  Often in crisis, misinformation can cause a social media explosion. It’s like the old game we used to play as kids called “Operator” where you whisper a message around a circle and see what it sounds like at the end. Monitoring helps you listen in on every conversation and head off reputation-killing misinformation or lies.
2. 2. Identifying your key critics; arming your advocates. In the book Brand Advocates, author Rob Fugetta cites page after page of data with the same conclusion: detractors can bring you down, but your advocates not only promote you, but will come to your aid in a crisis. They don’t need to be asked, they just speak up. If you’ve strategically built an army of advocates around your brand, you will mitigate a crisis quicker than the brands that don’t. I’ve found that brands who come to me before a crisis strikes have a stronger social media strategy than those who don’t.
3. 3. Having a response plan that is based on addressing key messages and not emotional, viral cycles. Response plans include two key components: messaging and triage. Who will say what? A good monitoring plan helps you identify key messages that keep you on track and helps you avoid responding to flare ups that are incidental to the conversation.
4. 4. Having an informed and trained internal staff that can help respond in non-mainstream channels of the organization. Many organizations have more than one social media channel. Trained staff can answer key questions without having to refer people to another chain of information. This shows that a brand trusts their employees and desires to answer the legitimate concerns of the public.

Being prepared for a crisis is not a doomsday prophecy. Today, it’s just smart business that helps preserve a brand’s reputation and resources in the event of a social media crisis.

Chris Syme is principal of CKSyme.org. Her agency specializes in real-time crisis services and social media strategy and training. She is the author of Listen, Engage, Respond: Crisis Communications in Real-Time, and her blog can be found at www.cksyme.org.

Editor’s note: Brad Phillips is taking two weeks off to celebrate the arrival of his new son. This is the second part of a guest post by crisis communication professional Melissa Agnes. Part one dealt with communicating with the media through your employees during a crisis; today’s post deals with communicating with the media through social media during a crisis.

The first thing I want to address is time.

Make no mistake about it. Today, it’s all about speed with the majority of reporters—and people in general. Unfortunately, often, if you don’t meet their need for speed, they’ll turn to get their answers elsewhere. Again unfortunately, that elsewhere will most likely be a place that you have little to no control over. However, even with this in mind, it is NOT in your best interest to start shouting out answers to questions, or commenting on events taking place before your crisis team has had the chance to establish the real answers to those questions. Although this needs to be done in the least amount of time possible, releasing important information before it has fully been assessed can come back to bite you.

Crisis pro Melissa Agnes

Mistakes such as declaring a wrong total number of deaths, or worse, declaring the names of deceased who are not actually deceased, are extreme examples of what mistakes have been made when brands feel rushed into releasing important news or updates to the public or the press in a crisis, before they’re truly ready to do so. Not a fun mistake to be made.

So, that said, it’s important to be aware of the timeline pressures the press imposes on you in a crisis and to be careful not to succumb to them by sticking your own foot in your mouth. A good way to buy your team (a short amount of) time is by releasing your “first response.”

Here are some guidelines to follow when dealing with the press in a social media crisis:

• As soon as you become aware of the crisis, clearly state on your channels that you’re aware of the situation, that you’re looking into it and that everyone can expect to hear directly from YOU the second you know more. Also known as your first response strategy, this will help in buying you time to grasp the situation.
• Update the press and public on all channels seeking info or talking about the crisis in regular intervals. Even if you have no new news to report, let them know this. Every 30 to 60 minutes is a good time-interval for consistent updates.
• Monitor the online discussions and respond where necessary. Refer people to your channels for updates and do your best to intercept the rumors or speculations before they escalate or begin to go viral.

But what about when the press begins to actually tweet, Facebook and/or blog about your crisis?

1. Monitor their reports to make sure they’re accurate

2. Offer them an interview with the spokesperson assigned to the crisis

3. Refer them and their audience to the channels on which you are dedicated to releasing timely updates

4. Comment on their blog and Facebook posts, with the right tone, and provide links to more detailed explanations or official statements published by your brand

5. When possible, move the discussion back to a platform that you have control over, i.e. your Facebook page, your blog, etc.

6. Keep the discussion two-way and keep providing real-time updates in consistent intervals so as to keep audiences coming back to YOU.

What about you? What tips and lessons have you learned when dealing with the press during a social media crisis, or a crisis of any kind? Share your experiences below!

Melissa Agnes, president of Melissa Agnes Crisis Management, is a specialist in social media crises and online reputation management. She also writes a daily blog on the subject of online crisis management. You can connect with her on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Editor’s note: Brad Phillips is taking two weeks off to celebrate the arrival of his new son. This is a guest post by crisis communication professional Melissa Agnes. Part two of this post will appear later this week.

I was recently asked the following question by a reader:

“I’d be interested in hearing how you would deal with the press/media in a social media crisis. In particular, how do you deal with the press when they start tweeting and Facebooking as well as blogging their story about a brand in crisis.”

The truth is, the press have and will always be around in a crisis. The difference that social media brings to the table is that anybody and everybody with a blog or a big following can be considered “the press.” We’re all publishers and content curators today. We all have questions and write about the issues that intrigue and matter to us.

So, in order to fully answer this question, there are two areas that I would like to address: communicating with the press through your employees (today), and communicating with the press through social media (later this week).

If you’ve developed a crisis communications plan and trained your staff on the proper ways to execute it, than you know that it’s important to educate each member of your team on how to properly deal with the press when they come knocking.

A well-trained employee will know not to answer any questions posed by the press regarding a crisis unless they have been titled as a spokesperson for that crisis. As for those who have not been titled as such, they should know where and to whom to refer the inquirer(s) for answers to their questions.

But even the most trained employees can get confused when it comes to social media. We’re so used to receiving @mentions on Twitter today that a simple question may seem harmless—until it gets published and extra damage control is needed by the brand. This is a common and innocent error in judgment that can cause your brand some major repercussions. Especially when said “interview” begins to go viral.

For this reason, it’s very important that each and every member of your team be trained on how to handle the press. As my friend and colleague Jonathan Bernstein says:

“Every employee is a public relations representative and crisis manager for your organization, whether you want them to be or not.”

That said, it’s very important that every single member of your staff clearly understands the following, before a crisis strikes your brand:

1. What they are and are NOT allowed to say to the press, during a crisis. This goes for traditional and social media.

2. Under what circumstances they are allowed to respond to inquiries and what types of questions they are permitted to answer—even when the inquiries come from a member of their own social graph or inner circle (friends, family, etc.).

3. Where they should refer incoming inquiries that they are not permitted to respond to. Should they be referred to an official member of the crisis communications team, to a dedicated web page (which you will have provided them a link to), etc.

4. What are the consequences for breaching these terms, both for the corporation and for the individual culprit.

Remember that your employees may be approached by the press in a crisis, and unless you want to have to do some additional damage control, it’s up to you to make sure that every single one of them understands what their particular role is within a crisis, as well as what is expected of them.

What about you? What tips and lessons have you learned when dealing with the press during a social media crisis, or a crisis of any kind? Share your experiences below!

Melissa Agnes, president of Melissa Agnes Crisis Management, is a specialist in social media crises and online reputation management. She also writes a daily blog on the subject of online crisis management. You can connect with her on Twitter and LinkedIn.

If your organization is in the midst of a giant, well-publicized media crisis, you can safely assume that most people have heard about it. Therefore, you don’t have to worry about your response widening awareness of the crisis. Since the public already knows about it, you’re not going to make them aware of the incident for the first time simply by responding to it.

But what happens if your organization is in the middle of a “mini crisis,” one which is only known to a specific audience or is confined to a specific news outlet or medium? A reader named Nicole recently asked the following question:

“Do you (or others) have any thoughts about how to carefully refute a negative story without directing a new audience to it? For example, if you decide to communicate to your audience via social media or a company website or blog, are you inspiring those who may have not seen the original negative story to seek it out?”

I reached out to a couple of my PR peers for help in answering her question.

Jeff Domansky, known as The PR Coach, emphasizes the importance of monitoring before responding:

“Have you done the best job possible monitoring your issue, assessing the true influence and  “real” potential impact of your critics? When you’ve done that, you’re in a better position to respond or not. If you do respond, do it transparently and limit your response to the same social media channel or media outlet where it appeared. Only widen your scope of response if the issue threatens to break wider and farther.

Crisis communications pro Melissa Agnes offers three tips to help PR professionals know when—and how—to respond:

“If it’s a circumstance where others will come across the negative story on their own, then you’ll want to make sure that your response to the issue is found just as easily, and alongside the negative story, for those that wouldn’t necessarily go and seek out your company’s response. However, if it’s something that probably won’t make it past a very select few people, here are some strategies to consider, depending on the particulars of the situation:

1. 1. Leave a sincere reply to the original story/attack asking for a way to personally get in touch with whomever is involved, in order to fix the situation. This allows others to see your sincerity and willingness to correct the issue.
2. 2. If you want to refute the story—and no apology is due—do so in the comments section and link to more detailed information on your own website.
3. 3. The alternative is to respond to the story publicly and give the right amount of information so that others reading it for the first time will not feel the need to seek out more information—and leave your messaging with a positive sentiment towards your organization.”

The advice Jeff and Melissa offered is spot on. I’d like to add two things to their excellent suggestions.

First, note the tone of your reply. Be careful to avoid defensiveness, which tends to undermine credibility, and ask a few trusted people from outside your organization to read your response before posting it. If those trusted sources pick up on any defensiveness, try rewriting those sections. I’ve written more about the perils of media defensiveness here.

Second, be careful to give a “human” answer. Too many people in crisis hide behind a wall of corporate speak or barely human responses. I recently wrote more about that topic here.

Thanks for the great question, Nicole!

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Editor’s note: Melissa Agnes offers more about the strong negative emotional impact of a social media incident here.

David Kirchhoff, the President and CEO of Weight Watchers, earned $2.96 million in 2011.

Singer Jessica Simpson signed a contract to be a celebrity endorser for Weight Watchers last year that pays her a cool $3 million. Singer Jennifer Hudson and basketball star Charles Barkley, among others, have also received millions to endorse the brand. 

So it’s little surprise that their employees—some of whom complain about barely making minimum wage—feel underpaid and undervalued. And in a bit of a nightmare scenario for the company, their employees’ complaints recently made it to the front page of The New York Times.

One employee quoted in the piece said she is “paid less than the kids who work at McDonald’s.” Another accused the company of being like an “abusive relationship,” since “you know you should leave, but you stay because you love it.”

The employees quoted in the article brilliantly cast the issue as a women’s rights issue, since the majority of its workers are women—many of whom are highly skilled and choose to work for the company due to their own positive experiences with the brand.

But this isn’t the standard “complaining about compensation” piece, because the manner in which this story became public is unusual.

According to a statement Weight Watchers sent me via email yesterday, the company confirms that, “The discussion among our [employees] took place on message boards on our Weight Watchers hosted communication hub.” And it’s on that very website that employee complaints about compensation poured in by the hundreds.

So here’s a question: Should Weight Watchers have had a policy in place that governed the types of “acceptable” comments it would allow to be posted on the internal website it hosted and paid for? Should they have directed employees to lodge complaints or raise concerns by emailing a specific address instead of allowing its own site to become a group forum for grousing?

I couldn’t help thinking that Weight Watchers could have helped prevent this story from bubbling up to the surface simply by moderating their site more carefully. Sure, nothing would have stopped employees from complaining on third party websites—but it would have been much more difficult for them to communicate without a central website to visit—especially because the workforce is diffuse and decentralized.

A Weight Watchers spokesperson told me via email that, “We have begun gathering feedback in a thorough proactive process and will make changes to our compensation system later this year.” The company pledges to provide “updates on our compensation system through emails and posts on our internal employee website.”

The issue Weight Watchers now has on its hands—the issue of the huge gap between executive vs. employee compensation—is one of the toughest ones for any company to handle. I’ve written more about that issue here.

So what do you think? Please leave your thoughts in the comments section below.

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This is an excerpt from my new book, The Media Training Bible: 101 Things You Absolutely, Positively Need to Know Before Your Next Interview, now available in soft cover and all major e-book formats.

I’m occasionally asked whether it’s ever appropriate to “freeze a reporter out,” or refuse to speak to him again.

Whenever I hear that, I immediately think of a scene out of The Godfather or Fatal Attraction, complete with horse’s head and boiled bunny. I imagine frustrated interviewees suddenly appearing as caped crusaders, exacting their revenge on unfair journalists by “rubbing them out.”

Think hard before you do that. Freezing a reporter out is a dramatic step that often backfires. After all, you probably think a company is guilty when a newscaster says, “We contacted representatives from the Huge Corporation, but they refused to return our phone calls.”

Before blacklisting a reporter, consider these remedies:

1. 1. Take it to a neutral party: It’s an age-old truth: The closer you are to a news story, the more likely it is you will find it flawed. Ask neutral parties to read, listen to, or watch the story and give you their feedback. You may be surprised to find that the message you hoped would get through to the audience did, indeed, get through.
2. 2. Talk to the reporter: Reporters need access to sources to do their jobs, and good reporters are willing to hear their sources’ objections to a story (they may not agree with you, but they usually listen). When you speak, remain polite regardless of the response. You will get a better reaction to a discussion about objective factual errors than subjective differences of opinions, but you’re welcome to make your case if you believe their view lacks perspective. If they’ve gotten a key fact wrong, you’re entitled to request a correction.
3. 3. Write a response: You may have forums available to you for a response, such as a letter to the editor, an op-ed, or a website’s comments section. Don’t repeat the original errors in your response, since doing so gives those errors more airtime. Just articulate your view.
4. 4. Speak to the editor: If you’ve gotten nowhere with the reporter, you can raise your objections with the reporter’s boss. Who knows? You may be the fourth person to complain about the same reporter in the past week. There is a downside here, though—no one likes to be complained about, and the reporter may take it out on you with even less favorable news coverage in the future.
5. 
6. 5. Respond with statements only: If it’s clear that the news organization is irrevocably biased against your company, you have two choices: cut off all access for future stories or respond to subsequent inquiries from that news organization with precision. I usually recommend the latter, which means sending a short written statement in response to future queries. That brief statement prevents the reporter from saying you refused to comment, and gives you more control over the quote.
7. 6. Cut off all access: The only time I ever recommend cutting off all access is when there is nothing to be gained by speaking to the reporter. Those cases may exist, but they’re rare. Most of the time, good media management means finding solutions to working with journalists, not avoiding them altogether.
8. 7. Use online and social media: Cutting off access to a news outlet doesn’t mean you stop communicating. Use online and social media to continue communicating with your key audiences through all available channels, including your company website and blog, and your corporate social media accounts.

The Media Training Bible is available from Amazon here and for the Kindle here. For other eBook formats and to read free sample lessons, click here.